I found this really interesting piece of writing on Latin American dictatorships - and what really interested me was the way different dictatorships were looked at: particularly the difference between 'military' dictatorships and 'charisma' dictatorships. Is one better than the other? Is one more valid, or acceptable as an authoritarian regime? It definately makes you think..
"It is a somewhat common refrain in Latin America that countries need the mano dura (strong hand) of a military dictatorship in order to get things done. Surveys in the early twenty-first century reveal a growing disenchantment with civilian governments, with a surprisingly large minority of Latin Americans stating a preference for a dictatorial form of government over democracy. Such sentiments date back to the founding of the Latin American republics in the early nineteenth century. After the removal of the Iberian crowns, conservatives argued that the new states were like children who needed parental guidance. These conservatives favored a centralist form of government in which a small group of elites would hold power and rule paternalistically on behalf of the rest of the country. Positivism, with its emphasis on order and progress, often provided a philosophical basis for such regimes in Latin America.
Some twentieth-century military dictatorships follow the pattern of nineteenth-century caudillo leaders who often ruled more through a use of personal charisma than brute military force. In fact, the only remaining nonelected executive in Latin America at the end of the twentieth century was Fidel Castro in Cuba, and his personalist style was more in line with the leadership of classic caudillos than what many would understand as the defining characteristics of a military dictatorship. However, while caudillos could be civilians and presented a variety of ideological stripes, "dictatorship" in Latin America normally refers to right-wing rulers who maintain themselves in power through overwhelming military force. For example, the Somoza and Pinochet dictatorships in Nicaragua and Chile maintained power more through repressive means than through personalist, caudillo styles of government.
In Chile, General Augusto Pinochet overthrew the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende in a bloody 11 September 1973 coup. Allende was the first Marxist elected to the chief executive office in Latin America in freely contested elections. His goals of agrarian reform, nationalization of industry, and a shift in production from luxury to consumer goods alienated the United States, which helped engineer Pinochet's coup. In power, Pinochet proved to be vicious, destroying the existing political system, engaging in extensive human rights abuses, and privatizing industry while taking services away from the lower classes. Although supported by the United States, Pinochet's military dictatorship dealt a staggering blow to democracy, freedom, and reform. Until handing partial power back to civilian leaders in 1990, Pinochet provided a classic example of a military dictatorship."
Citation: Dictatorship in Latin America - Bibliography http://science.jrank.org/pages/7630/Dictatorship-in-Latin-America.html
Interesting article, lovealyse. Sorry to be a killjoy but what you have done is copy pasted your entire post from the article. And not posted the conclusion to the article, which was in fact rather interesting.
ReplyDeleteI'm not a fan of pointing people away from original posts and I do thank Lovealyse for posting the article. But I do recommend reading the actual article over this post.
The article itself is an interesting viewpoint on the benefits of military dictatorships. Pointing out that many Military Dictatorships have had strong ideological view points and in fact carried out many reforms in some South American Countries.
But weren't these reforms under military dictatorships an attempt to undermine the Left and thus secure the military dictatorship? And, as the article notes, such reforms didn't really address what really needed to be done to foster self-perpetuating development.
ReplyDeleteAlso: is it right to classify Fidel Castro as a caudillo?
Buggered if I can answer those questions! I was just trying to seem less scathing of the post by backing it a little. I will protest ignorance at the Caudillo question and will move on to a more general issue of military dictatorships.
ReplyDeleteThailand did all right with their most recent one, and Fiji made the right noises in their first few months too. But its far easier to name the military dictatorships that did go in and seize power with the intention of holding onto it. Sure there may have been some well intentioned individuals, but more often then not they will be booted out/killed by the more ruthless ones.
I have an inherent distrust of Soldiers in charge of countries. USA has demonstrated this in Iraq. Burma is in a spot of bother too. Military dictatorships in South America have turned out for the worse in the end.
This can be extended to rulers who are better in times of war then in peace. Churchill being a prime example of this. In war, he was a leader, a stalwart of his people etc. In peace his flaws as a bigot, racist, xenophobe and general incompetent when it came to running an effective peaceful country came out.
With regards to that article, it said that the military government of Peru undertook some reforms, but only to secure the current regime.
ReplyDeleteGood point about Churchill.
unfortunately, i had origanally meant to publish the post differently, but the computer had messed up. particularly the citation which changed completely when i pressed publish.. I've fixed it so that it now reads the way I meant it to do so, and hopefully it will also show the context i published it in with more clarity.
ReplyDeleteGood article. The original article raises interesting points about the potential civilian benefits that come from military dictatorships, such as General Juan Velasco Alvarado in Peru. Steering away from the conseravtive military coups of many other Latin American countries, Alvarado did not follow the path of a typical military government, instead he sought to make deep and necessary changes in the government of the nation. This was achieved through the nationalization of industries and national agrarian reform laws to name a few.
ReplyDeleteColonial history has been indoctrinated into the pysche of Latin American politics and governance. Mano Dura is a plausible pathway but my question is from the strong hand of whom? Chile and Nicaragua's right wing military dictatorships of the past (backed by the United States of America) illustrate that political international intervention is quite frankly atrocious. With exponential economic inflation and national debt, privitization and unimaginable human rights abuses illustrating the destruction of the foundations of human improvement and democracy (as a shipped gift from the West)in Latin America. It is clear that undermining the history of the Left in Latin America is and will continue to be ineffective.
The future lies in the nationalization of mano dura, of Latin America leadership coming from Latin America. If so be it through a military dictatorship offering improvement in the quality of life in Latin America? Peru has shown the way.
What about democracy? Could it be possible that democracy is not suited to the cultural and social network of Latin America? With collectivity a key foundation in Latin American society, individual rights may not be as important as the welfare of the community? Yes it is working in the West, but this does not mean that the rest of the world will conform, and further, they should not have to conform.
'Peru has shown the way.' But has it? Admittedly, I do not know about the politics of Peru beyond what is written in the article, but it seems that the military dictatorship undertook reforms to secure it's tenure. The 'reforms failed to address fundamental structural problems in society,' revealing 'how difficult it was to escape from dependent development without radical structural changes in class, property relations, and income distribution.'
ReplyDelete'Dependent development' brings to mind the Dependency Theory literature which became a type of ideology in the 1960s and 1970s in Latin America. This literature encourage a hostility to foreign investment, leading Latin American states such as Brazil and Mexico to adopt inward import-substituting industrialisation (ISI) policies. In short, these policies created inefficient state-owned manufacturing industries that only increased inequality since manufactured goods were marketed towards the more wealthy.
A fear of dependence on foreign investment led Latin American states to borrow loans from abroad to fund ISI, which only led to dependency and contributed to the debt crisis of the 1980s.
Of course, if Peru did not follow the policies of Brazil and Mexico, then I have no valid points, and those who have read this have wasted their time (for which I apologise).
Alex E, as a Latin American I can assure that Latin Americans value democracy quite well. At any rate, why would you think that there's anything special about Latin American culture when almost all Latin American countries are today democracies (of varying quality, to be sure, but democracies)?
ReplyDeleteWhat about the Boixian argument: Latin America has tended to be a region with high inequality and agrarian economies, so of course elites have tended to want to subvert democracy, since democracy was too unfavorable to them - there's little here about culture. And as the article makes clear, most Latin American dictatorships have tended to be right wing (preserving the privileges of the elite), not left wing (with some exceptions, like Velasco Alvarado and Peron).
"Alex E, as a Latin American I can assure that Latin Americans value democracy quite well"
ReplyDeleteHehe. How does one say, "Ooooooohhhh burn" in spanish?
"At any rate, why would you think that there's anything special about Latin American culture when almost all Latin American countries are today democracies (of varying quality, to be sure, but democracies"
Thoroughly agree with you there Xavier. Venezuela counts among those.
On a less laughable/more serious note. I do think that boix's model has a point when it comes to South America. High inequality. Mainly fixed resources and capital such as land, plantations, forests, and mines. As well as a highly rural or agrarian society has definitely contributed to the higher then average level of revolutions per capita. (RPC).
What is also interesting to point out is that many of the rather nice and friendly left win governments (democratic or not) found themselves under a bit of pressure from that amazing democratic state, USA. USA has killed a fair few leaders and funded a fair few revolutions in the region. This intervention is hard to include in a model, but must be mentioned as a significant factor in many of these right wing dictatorships.
P.s Go the last minute posts! Only 11 hours 27 minutes left guys! Post Post post!
Alex E, I didn't mean to sound harsh. I just wanted to note that before saying something about latin american culture, we need to make sure that other explanations don't actually account for things better.
ReplyDeleteBen, I'm not acknowledging anything about Venezuela. The jury condemned it.